Moffat: “middle age will not define The Doctor”

The Times has interviewed current showrunner Steven Moffat in which he chats about Doctor Who, the new series and Peter Capaldi, you can find the full interview HERE. When asked about the influence the show has on creative people, he says:

“It is no exaggeration, nor a lie, nor a fairytale to say that many people have become writers because they wanted to write Doctor Who. Here is the most hilarious thing: there are scientists who got into science because they love Doctor Who.”

Broaching the fact that Peter Capaldi has bucked the trend in actors playing Doctor Who getting younger, Moffat commented:

“Logically, and I hesitated to apply logic to Doctor Who, regenerating younger is what Doctors should be doing.” 

On the writing process and making television shows, the writer behind the first episode of Doctor Who Series 8, Deep Breath, stated:

“you come up with a new idea
and it works, and it’s great, but you have to watch for the moment
where you’re just repeating that idea, when inspiration degrades into
reflex. It happened on every TV show I’ve ever worked on and every TV
show I’ve ever watched. You just think, ‘Hang on. We’re not doing that
because it’s new anymore, or clever, or right. We’re doing it because we
know it works’ — which, bizarrely, is sensible, but not scary or
interesting.”

When asked if he felt the need to dramatically change the character of The Doctor with Peter Capaldi, Moffat told The Times that middle age will not define The Twelfth Doctor, observing:

“Every character trait demonstrated in that first episode you could find
in Matt Smith’s Doctor and David Tennant’s Doctor and Peter Davison’s
Doctor. They’re all there. It’s where you slide the fader. Underneath
the abrasive and difficult Peter Capaldi is, of course, a deeply lovely
man who would be your best and loyalest friend in the whole universe,
just as underneath the adorable Matt Smith Doctor, there’s a cold old
soul who, if required, can do dangerous and terrible things.” 

Dealing with the issues that Series 8 and Peter Capaldi’s Doctor will be “darker” in tone, Steven pointed out:

“Doctor Who, first
of all, does blow up planets quite regularly, so it is quite dark. It is
also an early evening adventure serial so it’s also only as dark as
that. We’ve done very dark before. The 50th was very dark: he was debating genocide with himself. I think
it’s just slightly lazy journalism, dare I say? ‘We can hang it on that
peg! He’s going to be the dark one.’ The Doctor is the same amount dark
as he ever was, a man who absolutely capable of making terrible
decisions.”

Director Ben Wheatley (Deep Breath and Into the Dalek) agrees, telling The Times:

“If you look back, a lot of the Smith ones were quite dark and so were a lot of the Tennant ones. The Girl Who Waited
was particularly so.
No, I think the change is more to do with pacing. Moffat seems to be
stretching his legs a bit with the script. They are taking their time,
ironing out the narratives so they are not so compressed. It is
true that Capaldi is a serious person when you talk to him and that has
come through in the way he plays the character. He is a heavyweight. You
look at him and know he does not suffer fools gladly whereas other
Doctors might have indulged them.”

You can read the full interview with Steven Moffat in The Times HERE. Deep Breath airs on television and in cinemas around the world on Aug 23. It airs on BBC One at 7.50pm.